Our Game Plan: Man Up!

Dr. X posts this from the Autonation FoxSports radio studies in Los Angeles, California:

"I heard an amusing call on sports radio today. The caller expressed the following sentiments:

" 'Our game plan for the Colts is simple. Peyton Manning has to Man Up! He's got to be a man, and be a leader, and take quick drops, and take the hits, and protect the football, and make things happen out there. He's got to be a man. If he does that we will win.'

"The host - stupified by the lucidity of this - paused, then recovered, saying 'we'll hear more from Tony Dungy in the next hour.'

"But this strikes me as an almost perfect framework for quarterback evaluation. A great playoff quarterback does take hits (Favre has never missed a start), does avoid mistakes (Tom Brady has the fewest playoff interceptions per attempt of any quarterback in history, #2 is Bart Starr), and leads by example.

"Consider the play against Seattle that led the Cowboys to depart the playoffs in disgrace. There was no part of this test that Romo did not fail: he failed to make things happen, when hit he coughed up the ball, and then wept. (It is not wrong for a grown man to shed tears over failure on the gridiron, but it is good form to wait until the play is over.) Romo will need to improve on all these dimensions if he wishes to reside in Canton along with Unitas, Fouts, et al.

"As for leading by example, I thought highly of the performance of Tampa Bay quarterback Chris Simms the third week of the season. He performed well in a losing cause, throwing 1 TD against 1 INT and no fumbles. Perhaps a modest achievement until you consider that, after the game, he had his spleen removed.

"That is how the professional quarterback position is to be played."